by Paul Neuhaus
I was a little depressed when I realized Nikki Nguyen’s testimony was irrelevant to me. I was back to my two pre-digression courses of action. I needed to do some digging around Noah and I needed to stake out the Gasparyan house. Actually, what I needed to do was stake out the Gasparyan house, but I still dreaded the prospect. Rooting around to find out more about Noah Nguyen was still more of a personal thing, but it felt right to me.
I put the vehicle in drive and, oddly, thought of Hailey.
What was there left to discover about Noah Nguyen? What was I hoping to gain by going back to the scene of the crime? Anybody that says the private investigator gig is a methodical process is lying or they know something I don’t. To me, it’s always been instinctual. Right then, my instincts were telling me to see Doris, Noah’s neighbor. That impulse came from weird dreams was something I would’ve denied in any waking life conversation.
According to Nikki, Tad Albright had tucked his partner away because Noah wasn’t just a fling. He was thinking about leaving the Aetheric Concordance. The Concordance couldn’t have been happy about that since Albright was a global ambassador for their racket. You can’t get a better point man than the star of a multibillion dollar movie franchise. It’d be like if Mickey Mouse suddenly parted ways with Disney. There were not only dollars at stake, but, in a very real way, the future. Without Tad, the Concordance might finally wither and die. In that light, what was one good-looking Vietnamese kid, more or less?
Why had Albright reconsidered after all these years? I’d make it a point of asking him if I tracked him down. After all, it was a symbiotic relationship. Sure, the scale was tipped in Tad’s favor what with all the prestige he brought to the game, but it wasn’t like the church had done nothing for him. People talk about the strides gay people have made in the last decade or so, but there are some hurdles yet to be crossed. For instance, America—not to mention other less enlightened parts of the world—wasn’t ready for a queer action star. Even as things had tipped in favor of homosexuals within the States, the nature of movie box office had tipped too. At some point, revenue from outside America had eclipsed revenue from inside America. The Rest of the World was more important to our interests than it’d ever been. That fact had caused huge companies like Apple and Google to debase themselves at China’s feet. It’d also caused Hollywood—one of the most liberal towns in America—to surrender some of its ethos. Gay doesn’t play in a lot countries. And Hollywood is a business. They’re not dumb enough to steamroll their values into countries with huge paying audiences.
I knew Tad Albright was a smart guy. A helluva businessman. Was he planning on coming out on the world stage? Was he willing to surrender all that filthy lucre for a principle? Again, these were questions better left to Tad himself. Wherever he was, he probably wasn’t even aware that Noah was dead. That alone was reason enough to find him. That and getting Randall Dunphey’s feet out of the fire.
I decided I wanted to keep as low a profile as possible, so I parked on Doheny at a right angle to Santa Monica Boulevard. At a right angle to the Troubadour. I put on a jacket and pulled a Walt Disney Studios ball cap out of the backseat. I planned to walk through WeHo with my collar up and my eyes down. The last thing I needed was another encounter with the likes of Ivory Snowden. Between my face and my unmentionables, I was lucky to walking around at all. As soon as I got to the corner, I crossed the street, so I’d be on the side opposite the rock club. Nick and Nora’s was up a ways and I wanted to talk to Doris before I heaved a heavy sigh and went up to Glendale.
I made it to my destination without incident—not only because I was playing coy but also because it looked like it might rain more. That kept most everyone looking down and minding their own business. Once at the restaurant, I slipped through the alley to the staircase in the back. I’d seen Doris briefly as Noah and I walked past. I knew the two neighbors were friendly. If there was a lead of any kind in WeHo, the old lady was it. When I got to the top of the steps, I was pleasantly surprised. I looked through the glass back door and saw that Doris’ apartment was open. I went in and, adopting as nonthreatening a demeanor as I could, I knocked on her door. I didn’t see anyone, so I called out in a quiet tone. “Doris?” I said.
Right away, there came a lyrical-sounding answer. “Yes?” The old lady herself appeared from the kitchen. She was drying a plate and squinting at me as though she didn’t recognize me. Hell, she didn’t recognize me. She’d seen me just once in passing and I was working the raised collar and baseball hat.
I dropped my collar and took off the hat to help her out. “Doris, I’m Jack Huggins. I passed through here yesterday. Noah Nguyen introduced us.”
Doris sat down on the couch facing the door, the still-moist plate on her lap. “Oh. Yes. No. I remember you.” She looked shell-shocked. Not surprising. She’d just lost a friend.
“Would you mind if I came in and asked you a few questions? You see, I’m a private detective and—“
She held up one hand to stop me from coming in. “One moment,” she said. “After… it happened. The police were here. They asked me a million questions. Like I would know anything. They asked me about you. I told them I didn’t know you from Adam. I still don’t.”
“Right. Of course. May I show you something?”
She shrugged her shoulders. I fished out my wallet and opened it to the proper identification. I walked into the room just far enough so she could see. “It’s a P.I. photo I.D. State issued. See, that’s me, right there.”
Again came the shrug. “Okay, so you’re a private investigator. I don’t know who you’re working for. All I know is you and Noah went into Noah’s apartment, and only you came out.”
I decided I liked Doris. “That’s one hundred percent correct, ma’am. I don’t blame you for being skeptical. I can tell you, though, if I was an accessory to a hit, I wouldn’t be holding my license for very long. And that’d be the least of my worries since, if they could prove I was an accessory, my new address would probably be Folsom or Mule Creek.”
“Those’re prisons, I take it?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Okay, well, just say that. You don’t have to go all Film Noir on me.”
I liked her more and more by the minute. I stifled a grin.
“Have a seat,” she said, showing a chair with its back to me. “You won’t mind if I leave the apartment door open…”
“Mind? I’m gonna insist on it.”
She nodded as I sat, moving the plate from her lap to the coffee table between us. “Did Noah tell you I was a TV actress?”
“He mentioned it, yes.”
“I was on Barnaby Jones, I was on Columbo, I was on Mannix, I was on Rockford Files. I’ve been interrogated by Buddy Ebsen, Peter Falk, Mike Connors, and James Garner (for some reason they always cast me as the heavy). I’ve never been interrogated by anyone in real life. At least ’til yesterday.”
I nodded. “It’s not that different than the way they portray it on the box. There’s only so many ways you can spin one person asking another person questions.”
“You know what’s weird?”
“What’s that?”
“As soon as I mentioned Mike Connors, a bit of trivia about him popped into my head. It suddenly became the most important thing in my brain.”
I smiled kindly. “Tell me…”
She returned the smile. It was easy to see how she’d been a working actress back in the day. She had that spark. “Mike wasn’t Mike’s real name. He was an Armenian fella. Krekor Ohanian. Isn’t that a weird thing to remember à propos of nothing?”
“Nope,” I said. “That’s the way the brain works. Especially after a tragedy. Neural pathways firing all over the place. I gotta be honest: this whole thing with Noah isn’t sitting right with me. In fact, it’s got me shook. I mean I didn’t set him up in any way shape or form, but I felt like I did. I needed to ask him a few questions about a case and he got killed in front of me. It doesn’t sit well,
and I wanna do something about it.”
“And now, because you’re here, asking me questions about a case you’re working, do you think I’ll end up dead, too?” I think she thought she was joking, but as soon as she saw how pale I went, she regretted it. “Oh, Mr. Huggins. I am sorry. That was a terrible thing to say. I’m so sorry.”
I caught my breath and blew it off. I knew she meant nothing by it. “That’s alright, Doris.”
“Are we sure? Can we chalk it up to a janky neural pathway?”
“We sure can. But I want you to call me Jack from here on.”
“Okay, Jack. What was it you wanted to ask me?”
I took a deep breath and thought for a moment. What did I want to ask her? I hadn’t had a flight plan coming in. I started with the obvious. “Did you ever meet Tad Albright?”
“I did. He was in and out.”
“And how did he strike you? What was he like?”
“What was he like? Are you sure you’re not working for the Enquirer?”
I grinned. “No. God, no.”
She laughed politely, looking up at the ceiling to gather her thoughts. “What was Tad Albright like? I will buck the trend and say I didn’t like him. You know the reputation he has. Supposedly polite and kind. Sweet to his fans? All of that may be true, but he was one of those Veneer People to me.”
“’Veneer People’?”
“Yes, sorry. A term I coined. There’s nothing deep in it. You go into other parts of the country and they all think Hollywood types are phonies. Well, a lot of them are. They’ve all got veneers. An outward facing side that’s drastically different than who they really are. Albright’s like that. He was effusive and friendly to me, but I felt like I was being played. Maybe I’m an old cynic, but I don’t think so. I’m surprised Noah wasn’t hip to it. I’m surprised he didn’t see past the surface. Plus, there’s Tad’s behavior over the last few years.”
Like I say, I’m not much of a gossip, but Doris didn’t sound like she was one either. “What sort of behavior?”
She raised one eyebrow. “Have you been living under a rock?”
“Maybe so.”
“You didn’t see Tad’s talk show flare-ups? You didn’t see the cable documentary?”
I felt sheepish. I wasn’t a gossip, but it was looking like I also wasn’t paying close enough attention. “I’m sorry. Indulge me. Talk show flare-ups?”
Doris shook her head. “I’m happy to fill you in, but for god’s sake, after this, go out and buy yourself a TV. Starting about a year ago, Mr. Action was booked on talk shows. Night shows. Morning shows. Problem was, he did a bunch in a row where he was twitchy. Mouthing off to the hosts. Espousing that crazy cult he’s in. ‘Erratic’ would be too kind a word. Especially with the Concordance stuff. You can’t go on television and talk about that. Not and expect it to play in the flyover states. If he were to unleash his full Concordance-ness on the idiot box, it’d work against him more than if everybody knew he was gay. You just don’t do that. Talk about any religion that isn’t Jesus-based. And not only is the A.C. not Jesus-based, it’s about as cockamamy as religions come. Nobody wants to hear about that nutty bullshit.”
“Huh,” I said. “Someone told me Tad was thinking about leaving the church.”
The old lady shrugged. “He was in with both feet as far as I could tell. He even tried to convert me one night. I told him—as politely as I could—that he needed to keep his dog and pony show to himself. I almost had to beat him back with a stick.”
“And what was Noah doing during all this?”
“Saying what you’d think he’d be saying, ‘Leave her alone, Tad. She doesn’t want what you’re selling.’”
“And what about this documentary?”
“It was about the airheads. You know how they have a hierarchy?”
“The tiered system? Pay to play?”
Doris nodded. “I know this is gonna shock you, but the high-up airheads don’t treat the low-down airheads very good. In fact, initiates are not only abused, they’re slave labor. Albright has all the renovations on his house, all the maintenance on his cars done for free. He knows he’s benefiting from human rights abuses, and yet he stays inside the cult.”
“I think you’ve got that backwards,” I replied. “He stays in the cult because of the human rights abuses. Wouldn’t you just love all that free labor and institutionalized superiority? I mean they treat him like a god, don’t they?”
“They do. From this doc, they do everything short of wiping his ass.”
“Did the show mention his homosexuality?”
“Oh, no, no, no. Who outside of a small circle of people even know of that? I bet you anything the producers had leads, but they couldn’t work it in. Because, you know, libel. Lawyers go over everything that airs with the tiniest of fine tooth combs. Networks can’t afford that kind of exposure.”
I smiled at her. “You’re a smart lady.”
“What, just because I was an actress, I gotta be a nincompoop?”
“I’ve met my share of actress nincompoops. You’re the exception that… I dunno, proves the rule.”
“I wish I could better defend my sisters in drama. But you’re right… Some of them can’t count to twenty without taking their shoes off.”
“It’s true.”
She pointed at the hat in my lap. The Disney Studios ball cap. “Was that a souvenir or did you come by it honestly?”
“Honestly, I guess. If you wanna call being orphaned ‘honestly’?”
She crinkled her nose. “Did I just step in it?” she said.
“What? Oh, no, not at all. My parents were both Disney stalwarts. Producers, writers. My dad did some TV directing for them.”
Doris’ mouth formed a little “O”. “Roy and Carol Huggins?”
I nodded.
“My God, I worked for them. More than once. The Wonderful World of Disney. The Disney Sunday Movie. I adored them!”
I beamed. “Everyone did. They were well-liked at the Studio. So much so, when they died, I became an unofficial ward of the Walt Disney Company.”
“It was a car crash, wasn’t it?”
“1991. I was ten when it happened.”
“God, yes, I remember. When I saw it in the trades, I cried like a baby. I went to the service. Things like this always freak me out. You being here now. I was there, at the service, and you were too. When you were ten. Now here we are.”
“Here we are,” I agreed.
“I wish you’d told me who you were when you first arrived. I wouldn’t have been so squirrelly.”
“I try not to trade off the family name. Plus, it doesn’t take me very far in most circles. You’d be surprised by how few people care my dad directed Grandson of Flubber.”
She laughed at that. “Was I in that one? I don’t think I was.”
“Lucky you.”
“Aw, don’t make fun. That kind of wholesome family entertainment is extinct now.”
“Maybe so,” I replied.
After a moment of silence between us, Doris said. “What’re you going to do now?”
I sighed, searching for an answer. I must’ve looked foolish. “I will keep digging. Maybe I’ll be able to get out from under the bad feeling I’ve got.”
Doris smiled kindly. “I hope you don’t mind me saying it, but you remind me of your dad. Roy had that absent-minded professor thing going too. It was endearing. Most of the time. Not so much when you were acting, and he was directing and you couldn’t get him to commit on a direction.”
“That… sounds like my dad, alright.”
“Well, I hope you’ve followed in his footsteps character-wise. We could use more people like Roy in the world.”
I nodded, stood and thanked her for the conversation. I hadn’t learned much I could apply, but it was interesting stuff. As I walked back down the stairs at the rear of the building, I thought about what Doris had said about me following in my dad’s footsteps. I knew exactly what she’d m
eant, and I was sure I’d been dropping the ball for years.
When I got back to Santa Monica Boulevard, I looked both ways and tried to figure out if there was anything else I needed to do while I was in WeHo. My brain disappointed me by not coming up with anything. Feeling downcast (and thinking the rain would restart at any moment) I pointed myself toward my car. When I got there, I experienced an unwelcome deja vu. Sitting in the passenger seat was Evelyn, Randall Dunphey’s girl. The one he’d asked me to dodge. How was I supposed to dodge her when she kept appearing in my car?
I could probably start by keeping the car locked. Derp.
I got in on the driver’s side and sighed. “Hello, Evelyn.”
“You don’t have anything to eat this time.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I’d taken you on to raise.”
“That’s good,” she said. “You couldn’t afford me.” She was dressed in all black again. A different ensemble, but black still from head to toe. Se wasn’t wearing the make-up, though, and that was an improvement. No raccoon eyes. No death-black lips. “You told Randy we crossed paths yesterday,” she said.
“I did. He told me you were likely to pop up, so it seemed only right to tell him you already had.”
“I know he got to you first, but I bet you a chicken dinner my case is more interesting than his.”
“Could very well be, but I only do one at a time. I don’t have the brainpower for multiple cases.”
“What if the two cases are related?’’
“I’m going to stop you right there. Randall said your case was dangerous. It involved something I’d want no part of. I see no reason not to take him at his word.”
The little Goth girl made a “pfft”. “I assume Randy told you about his kink…”
I winced. One way or the other we were gonna talk about things I didn’t wanna talk about. “The whips and chains? Yeah, I didn’t want to talk about it then and I don’t wanna talk about it now.”